The present invention relates to the masonry field, especially to the art of laying up forms in which concrete footings are poured. Forms for concrete footings are set up with an inner and outer wall and are usually made of dimensional lumber or heavy plywood panels, or may even be manufactured aluminum panels. The inner and outer walls confine the liquid concrete and give it its final shape and dimension. Depending on the type of structure being set on these footings, the inner and outer walls may be spaced apart 12 inches, 16 inches, 24 inches or wider. Problems occur when the concrete confined between the inner and outer walls exerts a force on the forms pushing them apart until they collapse under the force resulting in what's known as a blowout. Blowouts not only cause loss of money to the contractor due to the loss of the concrete that escapes the forms, but much labor is needed to clean up the blowout and to reset the forms.
Another problem that is encountered when pouring the footings is that the top edges of the forms sometimes tend to curve inward toward each other due to the forces pushing outwardly at the bottom edges of the forms. This can result in an upper surface of the footing being too narrow to pass inspection. If this happens, the entire footing must be redone to get the proper width to meet local building codes.
Efforts have been made to correct these undesirable situations. A typical approach is to nail wooden spacers across the top of wooden forms, and to drive support stakes alongside the forms and to nail the forms to the stakes. While this approach can be effective in some circumstances, the wooden spacers are generally not reusable, are not adjustable, and do not have the strength required for large forms with a large width. Driving stakes into the ground is labor intensive, and can result in injuries due to missing the stakes with the sledge hammer and striking ones hands. Further, wooden spacers and supporting stakes cannot be used on aluminum forms at all. Another approach is to use metal clips that clip between the upper edges of the inner and outer form walls. Again, these clips do not have the necessary strength for large forms and they are not adjustable.